Then 10 most annoying les/bi characters in the history of TV

Entertainment Weekly recently made a list of the 20 most annoying TV characters ever, and while I was happy to nod along with most of their choices — it does include my archnemeses Will Schuester and Ellis Boyd, after all — it made me do some serious thinking about the most annoying lesbian and bisexual characters in the history of television. We’ve been really lucky because most of the les/bi women on the small screen have been pretty awesome. But there have also been a couple of duds in the mix.

Gretchen’s simple presence on Heroes was enough to make a person crazy. She was clearly nothing more than a last-ditch effort to pull the show’s ratings out of the gutter by having Hayden Panettiere kiss another girl. What’s worse, Gretchen was clingy and needy and when she wasn’t stealing Claire’s clothes and wearing them around campus, she was keeping a play-by-play in her diary of every move Claire made, every word she said, every nail she clipped. Gretchen would have been wearing Claire’s skin as a suit by the end of the season if NBC hadn’t pulled the plug on the entire operation.

A bullying cocktease who spoke in riddles like a Mad Hatter: that’s what should have been written on Alison’s tombstone. She fanned the flame of Emily’s lesbian leanings, only to later use those leanings for ridicule and manipulation. You think it’s tough getting over your ex-girlfriend because you have to see her perpetual Facebook status updates? Try getting over your ex-girlfriend when she keeps showing up to make out with you — as a ghost.